Dear Metabones, Zhongyi, and every other Chinese knockoffs manufacturer out there: I have a suggestion for you.
I realize you will be skeptical about releasing what would indubitably be perceived as a niche product. But a Speedbooster / LensTurbo / focal reducer to adapt medium format lenses on full format 35mm cameras would be absolutely terrific.
Imagine: being able to get that nice slightly compressed perspective that only a long lens like an 80mm can give, but with the same field of view of a 50mm lens on a full format body!
That’s the much talked, but oftentimes not much understood, “medium format look”. It’s not just throwing backgrounds out of focus; perspective plays a big role because it influences the relations among the various planes of the image, and for this to work you need long focal lenses.
Besides, with 35mm sensors now going from 24Mp and up straight in what used to be territory only of digital backs there aren’t many reason left for shooting on a PhaseOne and the like.
Just to be clear: I know that their bigger (sometimes not that much: see the many 36x48mm backs) sensors will give us better definition, mostly putting less stress on the lenses, and better tone separation.
But not everyone can splurge 30.000$ for the satisfaction of seeing a tad more softness in the skin tones, nor everyone has the intention to carry along steep mountain terrain 10Kg of gear, and some of us would like to shoot at more than 400iso (even if this issue has been probably solved with the latest Sony sensors).
A Speedbooster / LensTurbo that lets us use Mamiya 645 glass on our Sony FE mount cameras, I think, would hit the sweet spot. Thanks to the short (in medium format terms) flange focal distance of the Mamiya 645 series you would not even have to make multiple versions: we could just adapt Hasselblad and Pentax 67 lenses on the “basic” focal reducer.
Better still, make the device with a Canon lens mount, because it is the brand with one of the shortest flange focal length distances and, at the same time, a vast pool of adapters already available. This way, we would be able to adapt lenses to it as our heart content using the myriad of adapters out there: Hassleblad/Mamiya/Pentax 654/Pentacon etc., all to Canon EF.
I can’t guarantee this, but I’ve a pretty strong gut feeling that, if priced sensibly – after all it would be just a “dumb” adapter – it would sell like the proverbial peanuts.
Sure enough, I would camp overnight in front of the first shop that should sell one of these, assuming an acceptable performance across the field (we don’t need perfection, but it shouldn’t be rubbish either) and, like I said, a fair price.
And if you really want to give us a cake and let us eat it too, you could make said Speedbooster / LensTurbo / focal reducer with a tilt function. Pretty much every landscape photographer out there would send you Christmas gift baskets every year…
Think about it, please!
EDIT: it looks like Kipon finally listened! Thank you!!!
World’s first Medium format to Sony E-mount lens reducer adapter announced!
World’s first Medium format to Sony E-mount lens reducer adapter announced!
I AM puzzled about the perspective difference. To get the same framing and fov you will shoot from the same distance with both the medium format and 35mm format camera so perspective shouldn’t be the same ? Thanks I totall agree with you it should be terrific!!
Actually no, because perspective depends on the focal length used. To get the same framing with a 35mm sized sensor using a 50mm lens, with a medium format sensor (or a Speed-booster thingy) you’ll need a 80mm. The framing will be the same, but the background will be “pushed back” with the more wide-angle-looking 50mm, and “compressed” with the more tele-like 80mm. This because focal lengths are & behave the same REGARDLESS OF THE SIZE OF THE SENSOR. What changes (assuming the lens has a big enough image circle to cover the format we are interested in) is the amount of the projected image we are able to exploit (the crop factor). Basically with medium format (or, again, with a Speed booster) you are getting the best of a wide-angle (framing) and a tele lens (perspective), together 🙂
Ok but let’s imagine I shoot the same scene with the same frame on a iPhone (let’s say it is a 3mm lens) and on a 8×10 large format (so a lens of around 210mm I would say to give the equivalent 35mm lens focal). There is a very large difference between the focal of those lenses and I would be surprise to notice a very different perspective or perspective compression between the two shots but i could be wrong..
I know that it is difficult to wrap one’s head around this concept because it is kinda counterintuitive, but yes you would notice a very large difference; it is exactly this the much talked “medium (or large, in this case) format look”.
It depends on the different perspective and the fact that the larger the format, so the longer (i.e. tele) are the lenses needed to cover it.
This implies as well that, given now you’re using longer focal lengths, you will have less depth of field (that is, if you don’t use movements on a large format camera, but that is an entire different topic).
All your confusion stems from the fact that you are reasoning in terms of framing of a scene with different sensor-sized cameras. But perspective it is independent from the framing*, meaning that a 50mm lens, for example, will exhibit the same perspective no matter if used on a medium format camera (where it will be the equivalent of a 28mm), an APS-c camera (equivalent of 75mm) or a 35mm / full format camera.
To come back to your example, then, yes: you will see a dramatic difference in terms of perspective and depth of field both comparing the same scene taken with a 3mm lens (iphone, more or less a 28mm equivalent) or with an 8×10″ camera.
You can also (roughly) test this yourself: just take a shot, let’s say, at 28mm and then WITHOUT re-framing the scene using a 50mm (yes, you will be using the same camera, but like I told you perspective is lens-dependant* and you are “simulating” taking a shot with a much larger sensor when you shoot at 50mm, but just looking at a small section of the image, if this makes sense to you). You will immediately see what I’m talking about.
*All this depends by the fact that to get the same framing using a shorter lens you will have to move closer to your subject, while using a longer one you will have to step back. This is what ends up altering the relationship between subject and background, it is not some kind of “black magic” lens-related.
I would totally buy this medium format speedbooster – “acceptable performance across the field (we don’t need perfection, but
it shouldn’t be rubbish either) and, like I said, a fair price.”
Who knows, maybe they’ll listen at some point…stranger products have seen the light of day!
Hello
On “http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=672913”, it is stated:
“The reality is that focal length has absolutely nothing, in itself, to do with perspective in images. Neither the apparent “compression” of distance between foreground and background elements of a scene captured with a long focal length lens nor the “distortion” of features at close range captured with a short focal length lens has anything to do with the focal length chosen to create the image. It is distance, and distance alone, that controls perspective, either in a scene viewed by a person or in an image made with a camera. The choice of focal length affects one thing and one thing only – framing of the subject in an image.”
Do not know what to conclude now!
From a technical point of view they are (almost*) right. BUT (and it is a big butt) from a practical point of view to photograph the same scene you will have to get closer with a wide angle lens, and step back with a tele.
It is the reason, btw, because if you take a portrait with a wide angle the nose will look enormous: the tip of the nose will be proportionally much closer to the lens in comparison to the rest of the face when you’re using a wide angle from a meter away, compared to when you are using a, say, 85mm from 2 meters away.
It is the same reason that sits behind the “medium (and large) format look”. Larger formats use longer lenses as their “normals”, so they can exhibit what we normally associate to a tele perspective but shooting a much wider field of view (so being able to shoot closer). To give you an example, when shooting on 5×7″ I used a 240mm lens as my “normal”, but the field of view was more or less the one of a 45mm lens on 35mm / full format.
This is one of those things that’s really hard to convey with words, but that’s fairly obvious when you look at some pictures.
Summing up, though, the old rules of thumb that separate wide angle and tele lenses still stand if you’re taking pictures instead of being an optical engineer 🙂
*”Almost” because certain kind of distortions are more easily exhibited from the specific kind of optical scheme you need to make a tele lens or a wide angle lens
But you with your 80mm lens on your medium format camera and me with my let’s say 50mm 1.4 on my 35mm camera will be at the same distance (and thus the same perspective and compression if I understand well the article) and will have approx the same frame and dof. Isn’t the medium format look a combination of center sharpness, high micro contrast and shallow dof that make the subject pop ? It would be interesting to have a comparison between a hasselblad 80mm and zeiss sonnar 50mm 1.5
I’ve been googling for a few years, looking for just such a product to come into fruition! Basically, any focal reducer that allowed me to use the Contax 80mm F2 on a SONY A7 series camera (with better autofocus than the Contax 645 EVER had) would be a reason for me to buy into the A7 system! (though I’d settle for a Manual focus Mamiya adapter for the Mamiya 80mm F1.9 lens)
Either way. Someone needs to build this!
Same perspective and compression, probably (there is still the problem of matching different frame ratios). But not same dof; that depends from the focal length and quite a bit also from the actual optical scheme used for a lens, meaning that two 50mm lenses may exhibit wildly different dof at the same aperture. If you don’t believe me just look at the example I posted in one of the 50/1.4 Takumar reviews.
Shallow dof, by the way, doesn’t make the medium format look; it is just a fad of the moment thinking that. Once you’re used to shoot medium format you can often spot an image shot on it even at web sizes. I don’t know how to put it better than this, but is a matter of having a more “relaxed” perspective compared to 35mm film / full format, because you don’t need focal lengths that short to capture a scene and you (your lens) doesn’t have to bend the image that much to fit a scene onto the film / sensor. If it looks I’m struggling to define the concept is because is one of those things difficult to define in words, but easy to spot once your get used to it.
And I would love to see the comparison you suggested: I loved to bits the Hasselblad 80mm as long as I used one, and I have the poor Russian cousin of the Zeiss Sonnar 50/1.5 that, while surly not sharp as the Zeiss, it is still one of my favorite lenses.
First of all sorry for the delay in answering, I don’t know why I’m not getting notifications ONLY for the comments on this single post…
Anyway, it looks like someone might be hearing your request after all. Have you seen this video of a Contax N (and medium format glass as well) to Sony E mount adapter?
https://youtu.be/h8gKvjT1uNo
Now we have to convince this guy to put out a version with a focal reducer and we’re set 🙂
Well, actually we should convince him as well to lower the cost, for an adapter is bloody expensive! Even though, to be fair, doesn’t cost that much than a Metabones and in this case at least the AF is actually working pretty well…